Snowman Ideas for a Snowy Winter

Snow is dreaded by adults everywhere. Snow means bad driving conditions, and for some people, a lot of shoveling. Bring the magic back to a fresh snowfall by wrangling up your friends and family, going outside, and doing something fun for a change: Go build a snowman! We’ll give you some ideas to get started.

Traditional snowmen are made of two to three balls of snow, with the biggest ball on the bottom and stacked until the smallest ball is on top. To decorate snowmen, people often use Frosty the Snowman’s famous song as a blueprint, including coal for eyes, a corncob pipe, a button nose, and a top hat and a scarf. Sometimes coal isn’t the easiest to come by (unless you happen to find yourself on Santa’s Naughty list every year), so rocks easily make good substitutions for eyes. If you and your family have been enchanted by Disney’s Frozen, you might know about the snowman, Olaf, and you can take a leaf from Olaf’s book and use a carrot for the nose instead of a button. Sticks can be used for arms, eyes, smiles, and even hair.

You can easily break away from the boring and the traditional, and do something whimsical and fun for your snowman. One idea that’s been seen more and more in recent years is to add a splash of color with food coloring, which won’t be toxic when the snow melts and the ground absorbs it. You can create anything with the food coloring, from the basic eyes and mouth to entire wardrobes! Outfit your snowman with some outdoor equipment, like a tennis racket or a baseball bat, or even some toys like a prop guns and swords. Take it further by adding costume pieces instead of regular winter wear, like a pirate hat and an eyepatch to make your snowman a frosty swashbuckler. Build two or more snowmen and have them interacting with each other in some way, like dueling or having a snowball fight.

The imagination is the limit with snowmen, so you can go as far away from traditional as you’d like. Build your snowman with the smallest ball on the bottom and the biggest ball on top, making it an upside down snowman. Build the snowman with a hollowed out head and fill it with bird seed to watch some wintry birds make a pit stop in your yard. Don’t build a snowman at all and opt for sculpting a snow animal instead. It’s as easy as making a two-ball snowman and sticking a small snowball on the “face” to make the muzzle for a snowpuppy or snowkitten, using food coloring and more snow to sculpt some ears and whiskers.

What’s your favorite idea for crafting a snowman? Share it in the comments!